The present invention relates to an apparatus for plucking leaves from the stalk of a tobacco plant to harvest the same.
Tobacco leaves sprout from the entire stalk, from the base to the top. They sequentially ripen, from bottom to top. Hence, the lower leaves must be harvested before leaves at the top of the stalk. It is important to pluck ripe leaves and not damage unripe leaves nor the stalk. Since leaves grow in all directions on the stalk, it is extremely difficult to mechanically pluck only ripe leaves.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,083,517 and 3,841,071 disclose apparatuses for plucking tobacco leaves from stalks. Both of the apparatuses feature two leaf-plucking rods. In use, the rods are positioned, which clamps a tobacco stalk, then rotated and lowered, thereby plucking the leaves from the stalk. However, the apparatus disclosed in either U.S. Patent has the following drawbacks. Although relatively simple in structure, they both tend to severely damage the leaves. Another drawback is that the rods sometimes fail to pluck leaves that are parallel to the rods.
Another apparatus is disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication Sho. No. 54-30930. This apparatus has leaf-plucking rods spaced apart from each other and at regular intervals in the horizontal direction. Each of these has one flexible end. The flexible end swirls as the rod is rotated to pluck the leaves of a tobacco plant. Since the rods have a movement similar to that of a person's hands in manual plucking, this apparatus damages leaves less. The apparatus does, however, have the following disadvantages. The swirling flexible end of each rod sometimes hits the leaf portion instead of the stem near the stalk, which severely damages the leaf. The rods also may fail to pluck leaves extending parallel to the rods.